Forum:2019-01-11 (Friday)
Discussion for comic for . Genius is an infinite capacity for making edits. ---- Slightly obscure cultural reference. A. E. van Vogt wrote the science fiction novel The World of Ā (pronounced "null-A") in 1945. It critiqued the Aristotelian logic ("A") in which new ideas are validated through logical proof, in the form of syllogisms (major premise (All men are mortal), minor premise (Socrates is a man), conclusion (Socrates is mortal)). Null-A, the negation of A, refers to inductive reasoning that leaps to valid conclusions in a not exactly clear way. Van Vogt later became an adherent of Dianetics, the precursor to what became the Church of Scientology. Strange guy, really fun to read. Fun fact: His mother's name was "Aganetha." Bkharvey (talk) 06:28, January 11, 2019 (UTC) : Van Vogt's monster creating influence can also be seen in D&D and "Dirty Pair". (Coerl, of 'Black Destroyer' was the prototype for Mughi and Displacer Beasts.) -- SpareParts (talk) 19:42, January 12, 2019 (UTC) SnagApple LLC is a company that sells software services to real estate professionals. It looks like they had some trademark issues with Apple, but all the relevant links are behind paywalls. :( Bkharvey (talk) 06:40, January 11, 2019 (UTC) And, this has to be a coincidence, but: "Wee Beasties, LLC is a West Virginia Domestic LLC | Limited-Liability Company filed on April 5, 2017. The company's filing status is listed as Active and its File Number is 365405. The Registered Agent on file for this company is Rachel E Mcguire and is located at Pmb 161 1038 N Eisenhower Dr, Beckley, WV 25801. The company's principal address is 302 Osborne Rd, Danese, WV 25831."https://www.bizapedia.com/wv/wee-beasties-llc.html Bkharvey (talk) 06:46, January 11, 2019 (UTC) A [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drop_bear drop bear] (sometimes dropbear) is a hoax in contemporary Australian folklore featuring a predatory, carnivorous version of the koala (Phascolarctos cinereus). This imaginary animal is commonly spoken about in tall tales designed to scare tourists. (Wikipedia) Bkharvey (talk) 07:01, January 11, 2019 (UTC) I was a big van Vogt fan back in the '50s; the other three references are just potluck in DuckDuckGo. Today's quibble: Tarvek is assuming that the maximum value on the Snagapple scale is the same as the maximum value on the P.B.C. scale. Sadly, it doesn't seem as if Tarvek was even considering running after Snacky. Bkharvey (talk) 06:54, January 11, 2019 (UTC) : Tarvek is making a big assumption. But it isn't a "1" and isn't a high number so it probably isn't the worse case monster. Argadi (talk) 12:11, January 11, 2019 (UTC) :: You assume that it is a Ten-To-One Scale. What if it is a One-To-Infinity Scale? The latter of which would make much more sense. Bosda Di'Chi (talk) 15:07, January 11, 2019 (UTC) ::: No, I didn't. The "isn't a 1" means it isn't the most serious on a 10-to-1 scale, and the "isn't a high number" means it isn't the most serious on a 1-to-infinity scale. Argadi (talk) 03:21, January 12, 2019 (UTC) Oh, "It works," says Tarvek. I wonder what it means for an arbitrary scale to "work." Does it have to impose a complete ordering on monsters? Is a partial ordering okay? Etc. Bkharvey (talk) 07:07, January 11, 2019 (UTC) : Well, Newtonian physics is wrong, but "works" for most uses. The same goes for the Standard Model. Argadi (talk) 12:09, January 11, 2019 (UTC) :: Yes, but those things are theories that make testable claims about reality. A scale isn't like that; it's just arbitrary numbers. It's like "On a scale from 1 to 10, how much does it hurt?" I always have to say "It hurts 3, but I've had surgery so I really do know what a 10 is." Bkharvey (talk) 20:19, January 11, 2019 (UTC) : I viewed this as being a difference between a scale that's easy to use in the field, vs. one that is only good for "academics and postmortems". For instance, you might add a point to the scale if a monster has "deadly venom". However, in the field, you can't tell whether a monster has deadly venom unless you actually see it poison someone or get a sample. Additionally, a monster may have deadly venom, but not be very good at actually delivering it. : On the other hand, if you give a monster points for having long fangs, and extra if those fangs are hollow, that *is* something that you can check more easily in the field. And if it has a delivery mechanism for venom, and a spark created it, you can guess that it probably is venomous. So that kind of system might work better for monster hunters. Quantheory (talk) 00:40, January 13, 2019 (UTC) :: Aside from the fact that I wouldn't want to have to get close enough to a monster's fang to find out whether it's hollow, that sort of scale has the problem that a monster hunter would want to be warned that a particular monster is much more deadly than it looks. (Think about the venom question with respect to spiders rather than tigers, or think about with nothing but a walking stick.) Or, you know, mushrooms. Hard to tell which are deadly other than by looking them up in your monster manual. (Or feed one to a minion, I suppose.) Bkharvey (talk) 01:24, January 13, 2019 (UTC) ::: I agree. My point isn't really about venom or fangs specifically; I just meant that if you are trying to figure out how dangerous a monster is, you'd look for different things on the coroner's table than if you were in the middle of fighting it. The venom/fangs thing was just an example (maybe not the best one). ::: Besides that, if you are evaluating a new monster in the field, you have to use heuristics. I.e. you would probably guess that a giant snake with fangs dripping with venom is more likely to poison you than an equally giant bear, for instance. You could be wrong, because sparks are crazy like that, but if you have a new monster, you have to guess at some point. ::: Besides besides that, they actually do suggest that some monsters have fixed scales listed in books (e.g. drop bears are not listed in P and B, but presumably other monsters are, and there are books with drop bears). So presumably you only do that kind of evaluation when you're using a manual that doesn't have the newest monsters in it. I.e. for known monsters you use the book ranking, but for new/tweaked ones you have to assign a new number somehow. Quantheory (talk) 04:30, January 13, 2019 (UTC) "Two or three, maybe." Because this guy isn't meant to dismember or eat people. Just smack them around. -- SpareParts (talk) 19:42, January 12, 2019 (UTC) : But, but, it was meant to kill Higgs! Bkharvey (talk) 01:27, January 13, 2019 (UTC)